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Talk:English dub pronunciations/@comment-995426-20180620225604
In order to reduce at least the appearance of original research on this page, I'm thinking of following some of Wikipedia and Wiktionary's recent changes in the way they handle English IPA transcription: * Retiring the use of RABBIT and TODAY as weak vowels, and using KIT and FOOT in their place. and were always "metaphonemes", where a weak vowel was pronounced with free variation between the KIT or FOOT vowels on one hand and a schwa on the other hand. Wikipedia and Wiktionary now use separate , and as alternate pronunciations where they are known to vary. * Retiring the use of BATH and CLOTH as separate vowels, as there are hardly any native accents (in real life or in these dubs) that have a three-way distinction between the TRAP-BATH-PALM vowels or the LOT-CLOTH-THOUGHT vowels. Wikipedia and Wiktionary now use separate TRAP and PALM vowels as alternative pronunciations, and separate LOT and CLOTH vowels as alternative pronunciations, again, where they are known to vary. Of course, where my own accent is involved, I'm more reluctant to make some changes: * I maintain a three-way distinction between the strong GOAT vowel, the weak OMIT vowel, and schwa . Wikipedia and Wiktionary have started migrating the OMIT vowel to schwa, though I've objected. I can hear and recognize the OMIT vowel spoken at times in the dubs, though this need not be a conscious distinction by the voice actors. The England voices occasionally enunciate it as the LOT vowel, while American voices occasionally enunciate it as the GOAT vowel. * The FORCE vowel has been a somewhat divisive topic in discussion at Wikipedia, I know that. Most dialects have completely merged it with the NORTH vowel, and Wikipedia's editorial consensus has switched completely to for both vowels. Problem is, while the distinction is internationally on the decline, it isn't dead yet, and still survives in Scotland, Ireland and some swaths of the United States, as well as (perhaps weakly) in my own accent. But where the FORCE vowel becomes especially relevant is in the Scottish-dubbed accent of the Ardainian characters, whose NORTH-FORCE distinction is consistently made, but in which all vowels before can be analyzed as independent vowels. Most dubbed accents certainly completely merge NORTH and FORCE vowels, though, especially in XC1 where all the accents reflect Southeast England. So at times when we don't hear a distinction, how do we know which vowel is a NORTH vowel and which vowel is a FORCE vowel? There's a rule of thumb: The NORTH vowel came from a "short" O, and the FORCE vowel came from a "long" O, and certain standard dictionaries still document the known counterintuitive exceptions (including the word "force" itself which is pronounced as if spelt "foarce"). As a thought exercise, imagine the "r" as a different consonant, and sound out the vowel according to its spelling to determine whether it would have been short or long. In Scottish English (and thus in Ardainian accents), this is no mere thought exercise, but a real pronunciation difference. Wikipedia's compromise for this is to use as the broad transcription for both NORTH and FORCE vowel in all cases, but to use a second alternative pronunciation if the distinction is still made in practice, such as for local place names in Ireland and Scotland or New England. For me personally this seems like a fudge. But in practice, this compromise actually works, as it's not that different a principle from the NURSE vowel which is one vowel in most accents (including my own) but has three separate pronunciations in Scottish English depending on the word.